Crisis events spawn financial buzzwords

Crisis situations are the most likely to create buzzwords out of otherwise unheard of financial jargon, going by the trend seen in the year going by.

Phrases like ‘sweat equity’, ‘overlays’ and ‘2G spectrum’ were thrust into the limelight, forcing people to look up their meanings.

The IPL cricket controversy that cost minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor his job, introduced ‘sweat equity’ into newspaper headlines.

‘Overlays’ came from the the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam: it refers to temporary infrastructure facilities, such as fitness equipment, furniture and refrigerators, invoices for which were allegedly inflated by the CWG organisers.

The alphanumeric ‘2G spectrum’ is linked to the mother of all scams: 2G refers to ‘second-generation’ mobile technology that is currently used by mobile service providers in the country. Spectrum is a band of radio frequencies.

Other 2010 terms included ‘green shoots’, ‘yellow weeds’ and even ‘brown manure’ — all defining different states of world economies recovering from the financial crisis.

However, the year saw the fewest financial jargons coined in recent times.